While thousands of people watch hockey players lose teeth and bang bodies in Allentown's proposed hockey arena, Lehigh Valley Health Network expects at least some of those players to come next door to get patched up.

LVHN on Tuesday announced that it will be a major sponsor of Allentown's $158 million arena for the Phantoms minor league hockey team, and the health network unveiled plans for a sports medicine center that would bring hundreds of jobs to downtown Allentown.

The regional sports medicine center will occupy five of seven floors of an office complex attached to the arena, offering outpatient rehab, sports training, community health programs and what is expected to be the first area center specializing in brain injuries and concussions, LVHN Chief Executive Officer Dr. Ronald Swinfard said.

As part of the five- to 10-year deal, the hospital will be the official health care provider for the Phantoms, the Philadelphia Flyers-affiliated minor league hockey team that is scheduled to call the arena home beginning in September 2013.

"As I said to our board at the time they were approving this, you have to believe," Swinfard said. "By the time this project is completed, I think there will be a lot of people who will be believers in the importance of this."

Swinfard said the partnership with the team will mean the Phantoms — and potentially even a few Flyers players — will be training and rehabilitating at the facility. But he stressed the bulk of the new center's patients will be from the general public and any high school, college or youth sports team in the region that wants to take advantage of it.

Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski is counting on it.

"This is just another piece of the puzzle. A facility like this is going to work like a magnet," Pawlowski said. "This will draw players and teams from all over the region and country. This is big."

Located in a unique 130-acre zone that withholds all state and local taxes, except real estate taxes, to be used for the arena and surrounding development, the project is billed as the catalyst for a new downtown of office buildings, restaurants, shops and eventually, homes for new residents.

As early as next month, the city is scheduled to begin construction on an arena that will hold 8,500 people for hockey games and as many as 10,000 for concerts. It is expected to be active 120 dates a year for Phantoms homes games and as a potential venue for musical performances, arena football, expos and perhaps even professional lacrosse.

The complex is also expected to include a sports bar, a restaurant, several retail shops and a 180-room hotel on the Seventh Street side of the arena.

What Swinfard called LVHN's Sports Medicine and Fitness Destination Center will be in a seven-story, 203,000-square-foot office complex attached to the arena — on the Hamilton Street side.

The center will likely include three floors of medical office space and two full floors of training and rehabilitative equipment, Swinfard said.

But city, hospital and team officials were short on many details, in part because LVHN's deal is still being negotiated and partly because Swinfard said exactly what will be in the new complex hasn't been entirely mapped out. Some programs, including some it runs through OAA Orthopedic Specialists in South Whitehall Township, will move downtown, but programs such as the brain injury center will be new, Swinfard said.

Swinfard said about 60 percent of staff moving to Hamilton Street will come from existing LVHN buildings around the Valley, and 40 percent will be new hires.

Phantoms owners Rob and Jim Brooks, who also have a part ownership in the Pittsburgh Penguins, said they're hoping to duplicate the success they've seen with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Center for Sports Medicine in Pittsburgh's main hockey arena, the Consol Energy Center.

"Proposing to launch a new sports medicine and fitness center based in the arena is a reflection of our shared commitment to making the arena a regional asset," Jim Brooks said. "We will also work together to create a community outreach program that will be directed toward educating the youth of the Valley about the importance of wellness, proper nutrition and maintaining good grades."

The arena building eyed by LVHN is scheduled to open for the start of the 2013-14 hockey season. But Hanover and Bethlehem townships in Northampton County plan a lawsuit over the 2009 state law allowing earned income taxes paid by workers in a special downtown zone to help pay for the arena.

While state Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, who wrote the law, believes it passes legal muster, he said it's possible the litigation could delay construction while a judge decides.

None of that seemed to worry Pawlowski, as he made the latest of many announcements involving the arena project.

"This is a real, real exciting day for the city of Allentown," Pawlowski said.